Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Let's Make America Great Again! or The Good Old Daze!

Let's Make America Great Again!
or The Good Old Daze!

     Whenever a politician wants to tug on the emotional heart strings of the voters, it's usually followed by pulling the "Let's Go Back to a Time When Everything Was Great!" card. This has been a conservative ploy for many years, used when some liberal agenda has defied or usurped an important issue or program benefiting the conservative right. Yet, when exactly were times great.. and for whom? The 1700s? The 1800s? The early 1900s? The late 1900s? 2000 and beyond?
     If you asked me when my life was great ... I would have to reply around the age of 15. I was in the best shape of my life (no driver's license meant bike... bike meant exercise). I lived at home and ate and slept free. The family took vacations. We exchanged gifts on birthdays and Christmas. We went out to nice dinners. I had one or two side jobs, but nothing serious. I hung out with one or two girls, but again... nothing serious. I didn't drink.. so no hangover. I did steal cigars every now and then (I sang in a Men & Boys choir... Boys singing Soprano made $5/month, Men singing Alto, Tenor or Bass made $25/month. Cigars made me raspy. It was a no brainer.) In the summer, I played sand lot baseball everyday, followed by hanging out at the local pool. Age 15 seems to me the perfect age to go back and relive... but WAIT!...
     When I was 15, it was 1974. Hippies were spitting on service men returning from Viet-nam. Nixon quit office before he was impeached. Then, replaced by a man who had not even run for Vice president... or president... but one who did pardon the 'Crook'...  the one thing Nixon had publicly declared he wasn't. Civil Rights unrest. Women's Rights. Only 3 major TV networks ...and PBS. Gas prices were starting to rise. OPEC was calling the shots. There were ads stating all Oil would be used up by the Year 2000. There was also another commercial with a Sicilian actor playing an Indian crying about the garbage people would litter and toss out of cars.
     As for cars, they were starting to look different.. and uncool. Cars like the AMC Pacer, Matador and Gremlin... just to mention a few.
     People were wearing blue jeans everywhere. Denim was in. So were Bell bottoms.... but so were Afros. Even, white man Afros. Dick Clark had his Bandstand, but we occasionally turned the channel to see how people were really dancing on Soul Train. Saturday cartoons still had violence and were far from politically correct (Speedy Gonzales, et al). It was the TV age between Marsha Brady fantasies and Charlie's Angels. Our sports heroes got more off season TV time appearing on ABC TVs Superstars competition... And Hank Aaron finally conquered Babe Ruth's HR record.
     We had one or two TV Movies of the Week. We had detectives like Columbo and McMillan & Wife. We had Mary, Ted & Rhoda! One year, Hogan's Heroes was cancelled and the next year M*A*S*H premieres. We had the Fonz!
     Though Saturday Night Live was all but a year away, we did have popular variety shows like Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Glen Campbell, Flip Wilson and the like. Though Sesame Street killed Captain Kangaroo's morning run....Johnny Carson was still the King of Late Night.
     Game shows (like Password, Match Game and The Price is Right, even the Gong Show) and Soaps (like All My Children, General Hospital, Guiding Light & Days of our Lives) were the daytime TV rage. Movies were becoming moreand more titillating, so much, even adult films were becoming main stream (Deep Throat). Playboy was mild. Penthouse was wild. Hustler was over the top, but please don't get caught reading Mom's Cosmo... or The Joy of Sex!
     The economy was tanking. Politicians were wary of investigations. Apathy did abound.
     But all that was MY favorite age and era. Others might fawn over the Elvis '50s. Some may want to relive the Beatles '60s. How about reliving the MTV generation of the 80s? Or Bill Clinton's 90s... when jobs were plentiful, but you would need to work 3 of them to survive?
     Let the truth be told. You can't go back and make America great AGAIN! You must have a plan, a platform or even an outline on how you would make America GREAT now and future years! Explain how can you pull so many different factions together and truly make the US E Pluribus Unum (Out of many one)! When a politician wants us to dial up and go backwards in Mr. Peabody and Sherman's Way Back Machine, it usually means that they have no plan to move us ahead. And let that be our history lesson. It is something we should have learned about Washington DC a long, long time ago!
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